Hungarian Dual Citizenship Kicks in With View to Voting Right

“What a nation gives up for good will be lost.” A protester holds a map of “Great Hungary,” which depicts how Hungary’s borders changed with the Trianon Treaty in 1920 after the First World War. Since then, a large number of ethnic Hungarians live outside the country’s borders.

Ethnic Hungarians living outside Hungary can file for Hungarian citizenship in addition to their existing one under Hungary’s Dual Citizenship Act, which came into force Jan. 1.

Voting rights don’t come automatically with the Hungarian citizenship — they come with obtaining a permanent address in Hungary.

This may change, however, with the new Constitution, which the Hungarian parliament is to debate in March, the Justice Ministry told New Europe.

“Croatia has introduced a policy to provide voting rights for Croats living abroad on a separate list (from the other voters),” the Hungarian Foreign Ministry said as an example of such recent changes in the central and Eastern European region.

The Hungarian dual citizenship law, one of the first pieces of legislation the governing Fidesz party passed in parliament after gaining a two-thirds parliamentary majority in general elections in spring 2010, ensures equal rights for dual citizenship holders with Hungarian citizens such as obtaining a Hungarian passport.

Fidesz expects that by providing voting rights for all Hungarian citizens, it will gain further voters, but this won’t necessarily be the case, Political Capital analyst Attila Juhasz told New Europe.

“Ethnic Hungarians can’t be dealt with as a homogeneous mass. Similarly to those living in Hungary, they also hold politically diverse views,” he added.

While the government may expect further voters at the 2014 general elections as a result of expanding voting rights, dual citizenship could be an advantage only for a limited number of people, the analyst noted.

“It’s favorable for those who already live in Hungary or plan to do so in the future; and also for non-Schengen dwellers who would like to take advantage of the EU citizenship that comes automatically with Hungarian citizenship,” Juhasz said.

The bill could potentially matter to a conservatively estimated 2.59 million ethnic Hungarians living in neighboring Slovakia, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, Austria, Croatia and Slovenia. This compares to the government’s expectations for 250,000 to 400,000 applicants this year.

So far, 1,665 people applied for dual citizenship, Hungary’s state news agency MTI reported. This almost equals to the applications in the first halfof last year. In the surrounding countries, applications mainly come from Romania, while aren’t many Slovakian or Slovenian ethnic Hungarians interested in it, Juhasz said.

Neighboring countries have noted relatively solemnly that the law came into force. Slovakia, the No. 1 critic of the law back in May 2010, is far less outraged especially after a change in the political regime there and as relations between the two countries have improved.

“Slovakia needn’t have concerns about anything that doesn’t represent any threat to it,” Slovak Foreign Affairs Minister Mikulas Dzurinda told Slovakian state news agency TASR. “We needn’t be afraid of a few little wooden swords; they break very quickly,” said Dzurinda, adding that there is no rational reason for the citizens of one state to elect the constitutional bodies of another.

Further information on obtaining Hungarian citizenship for ethnic Hungarians is available here.

Comments (5 of 15)

Andy, the lack of basic human right denied to Hungarians in present day Rumania and Slovakia as well as Serbia is a very real present day issue that could be disfused by the EC. If this were done much of the anomosity could lessen.

7:21 pm April 14, 2011

@Vanes Sirac wrote:

Your criticism is welcome, even if we disagree on many things.
For starters, the "Hungarian myth" is not the only one alive. There is a pan-slavic myth, and numerous regional slavic myths around. The Romanians have the Dacian myth, possibly the most unfounded and most ridiculous of all Eastern European myths. In this context, Hungarians are not the exception, but they are rather normal.

There is a certain Hungarian arrogance, but not an inferiority complex. Hungarians have produced more Nobel prize winners than all the Slovaks, Romanians, and Serbs combined. The inferiority complex and jealousy is the hallmark of these latter peoples.

4:25 am January 13, 2011

To Vanes Sirac wrote:

Part one. (I got posting difficulties for days.)
I regret to inform you, but Andy is sadly cannot be more correct, but maximum less correct. Not only the Hungarian myth is alive, but also the Greec, roman, Norse, Inca, and many more myths of the human civilisation. There are cultural faculties in all well civilised countries of the Earth with department(s) about classical myths, where it is alive among the students and techers. The official declarations are not toned down, because they are monotone in that regard. Neither country has any territorial claim from the other, period. The relations were normalized more than a decade ago, there isn't anything to be normalized, in any order. Please observe, that there are problematic issues, which thecnicallly doesn't need to be normalized, because they are have to be solved instead. Please also observe, that even the hungarians were a minority in Greater Hungary, there were no majority at all, and it wasn't domainated by nobody. It may be impossible to you to imagine that there could be a country where minorities isn't opressed or dominated or where they want to opress or dominate other minorities, but the reality is that in Hungary any such behaviour was / is / will be considered radical extremist antisocial and condemned by the most majority of the people. As I said it wasn't a problem, that the hungarians were minorities, and other minorities together were more, because all were the citizens of Hungray. There were no need to victimize any minorities. The minorities of the country were dependent on each other, therefore angering one caused negative backlash to all other minorities.

4:22 am January 13, 2011

Leslie wrote:

To Vanes Sirac. Part one. (I got posting difficulties.)
I regret to inform you, but Andy is sadly cannot be more correct, but maximum less correct in the first post. Not only the Hungarian myth is alive, but also the Greec, roman, Norse, Inca, and many more myths of the human civilisation. There are cultural faculties in all well civilised countries of the Earth with department(s) about classical myths, where it is alive among the students and techers. The official declarations are not toned down, because they are monotone in that regard. Neither country has any territorial claim from the other, period. The relations were normalized more than a decade ago, there isn't anything to be normalized, in any order. Please observe, that there are problematic issues, which thecnicallly doesn't need to be normalized, because they are have to be solved instead. Please also observe, that even the hungarians were a minority in Greater Hungary, there were no majority at all, and it wasn't domainated by nobody. It may be impossible to you to imagine that there could be a country where minorities isn't opressed or dominated or where they want to opress or dominate other minorities, but the reality is that in Hungary any such behaviour was / is / will be considered radical extremist antisocial and condemned by the most majority of the people. As I said it wasn't a problem, that the hungarians were minorities, and other minorities together were more, because all were the citizens of Hungray. There were no need to victimize any minorities. The minorities of the country were dependent on each other, therefore angering one caused negative backlash to all other minorities. I hope you realize, if Trianon borders were drawn fairly according to the ethnicity it would make that much difference from the current state. Contrary to what you claim, it would not only be many more than 2.5 millions more of Hungarians, but many not marginal (nor slightly) border changes. You completly forgot the Vajdaság and the will of those minorities in the taken coutryparts that are neither hungarian nor the new majority of the new country. Most notably are the jews and the germans. If they would be asked where they want to belong at the time of Trianon, then most probaly they would choose Hungary over the new country. OK, even if I go along with your 2.5 million number, and your notation that they are some kind of insignificant slight or marginal people, then I ask you: do you know how many countries are in Europe (inside or out of EU) that have 2.5 million or less cityzens? Or do you know how many big cities have equal or lesser inhabitants? Would you call them also only slight marginals? Even 2.5 million hungarians are measured in tens of percents of the remaining hungarians in the remaining Hungary, and tens of percents of difference are considered much difference in civilised countries.

4:20 am January 13, 2011

Leslie wrote:

To Vanes Sirac.
I regret to inform you, but Andy is sadly cannot be more correct, but maximum less correct in the first post. Not only the Hungarian myth is alive, but also the Greec, roman, Norse, Inca, and many more myths of the human civilisation. There are cultural faculties in all well civilised countries of the Earth with department(s) about classical myths, where it is alive among the students and techers. The official declarations are not toned down, because they are monotone in that regard. Neither country has any territorial claim from the other, period. The relations were normalized more than a decade ago, there isn't anything to be normalized, in any order. Please observe, that there are problematic issues, which thecnicallly doesn't need to be normalized, because they are have to be solved instead. Please also observe, that even the hungarians were a minority in Greater Hungary, there were no majority at all, and it wasn't domainated by nobody. It may be impossible to you to imagine that there could be a country where minorities isn't opressed or dominated or where they want to opress or dominate other minorities, but the reality is that in Hungary any such behaviour was / is / will be considered radical extremist antisocial and condemned by the most majority of the people. As I said it wasn't a problem, that the hungarians were minorities, and other minorities together were more, because all were the citizens of Hungray. There were no need to victimize any minorities. The minorities of the country were dependent on each other, therefore angering one caused negative backlash to all other minorities. I hope you realize, if Trianon borders were drawn fairly according to the ethnicity it would make that much difference from the current state. Contrary to what you claim, it would not only be many more than 2.5 millions more of Hungarians, but many not marginal (nor slightly) border changes. You completly forgot the Vajdaság and the will of those minorities in the taken coutryparts that are neither hungarian nor the new majority of the new country. Most notably are the jews and the germans. If they would be asked where they want to belong at the time of Trianon, then most probaly they would choose Hungary over the new country. OK, even if I go along with your 2.5 million number, and your notation that they are some kind of insignificant slight or marginal people, then I ask you: do you know how many countries are in Europe (inside or out of EU) that have 2.5 million or less cityzens? Or do you know how many big cities have equal or lesser inhabitants? Would you call them also only slight marginals? Even 2.5 million hungarians are measured in tens of percents of the remaining hungarians in the remaining Hungary, and tens of percents of difference are considered much difference in civilised countries. You wonder why Hungarians verbally attack Slovaks? Wonder no more, it is not some sort of inferiority complex, it is because they are right. Not allowing dual citizenship may be as frequent globally as allowing dual citizenship, but Hungary and Sovakia are exceptions in this case. Both countries got more time in its history during the dual citizenship was allowed than not. I don't even know when it was forbidden to have dual citizenship in Hungary since Slovakia exists. You don't see the point of a proof of chaotic nature of the Central Europe, and I don't see it also. I don't know what western Europeans see, but they probably see some illusion. Please observe, that there may be many problems in Central Europe, but problems are not equal as chaos (disorder and anarchy). For your information the things are currently straightening in Hungary, albeit in an autocratic way. A strong leader of a strong party is straightening things by strength (force) to his own way. For your calming I can happily inform you that hungarians don't blame others for their own problems. They are blaming others for problems caused by the others. Please observe that any problem that occurs because there are a problem caused by others cannot be considered own problems, subsequently any problems caused by this kind of problem should also not considered to be own problem. For your further calming no hunagrians ever feeled / feels / will feel revisionists naturally more visible than non revisionists, because no hungarians are naturally opaque or naturally camuflaged or have naturally blurred outlines. If you see any human beeing more visible than another right beside it with the only main differences between them being their oppinion in a subject-matter, then you are advised to go to consult with an optometrist about it.

About Emerging Europe

Emerging Europe Real Time provides sharp analysis and insight into what’s making news in Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on the expertise of our reporters in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Turkey, the site provides an inside track on economics, politics and business in this emerging part of the European continent.